"[...]This is the movie I wanted it to be, and I’m sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it. But I want it to be the way I want it to be. I’m the one who has to take responsibility for it. I’m the one who has to have everybody throw rocks at me all the time, so at least if they’re going to throw rocks at me, they’re going to throw rocks at me for something I love rather than something I think is not very good, or at least something I think is not finished."
George Lucas on
the polarized reactions to his "Special Edition" edits of the Star Wars original trilogy
the polarized reactions to his "Special Edition" edits of the Star Wars original trilogy"There are two arguments against Lucas' philosophy and approach. One is that he has no right to alter classic films. I would agree that he has no right to make changes to It's a Wonderful Life or Citizen Kane, but Star Wars is his baby. Cursed with perfectionism, he's trying to provide the ultimate cut while strengthening the ties between the original trilogy and the prequels. Also, it's worth noting that, taken in context, the changes are minor. Greedo shooting first. A CGI populated Mos Eisley. Han meeting Jabba. No more "Yub Yub." Vader screaming "Nooo!" To those not steeped in Star Wars lore, these things pass unnoticed. The essence of what the movies were, are, and will be remains the same; all the things we love about Star Wars are unchanged. Some argue they cannot watch the Special Editions without being pulled out of the experience by the alterations. Fair enough, although that criticism says more about the viewer than the material they are viewing. If that's the case, they're not really immersed."
"It must be perfect.. never clean... NEVER CLEAN!! The past never happened, I'm in control of my life!!"
— JonTron playing Revenge of the Sith Scene-Bot''
Raj: (regarding the Blu-ray) Come on, Sheldon, it's Star Wars!
Howard: I'm pressing play, I mean it! You know, if we don't start soon George Lucas is gonna change it again!
Howard: I'm pressing play, I mean it! You know, if we don't start soon George Lucas is gonna change it again!
"Lucas states that these films should be seen as one work—for what reason should we not?...Why the hell else would Lucas go back and adjust the old films? There are three reasons for this: tests for The Phantom Menace; secondly, so these films do not appear formally discordant; but most importantly, so that it reworks the previous material into the story Lucas has decided his work should be about—the series is about Anakin/Vader, not Luke or Leia. Why should anyone stop him? The original excepted, these were works created with unparalleled independence and freedom within the slave market of American cinema—and people want to tell an artist how to do their work? What form of stupidity is this? Lucas’s re-edits are a remarkable Kuleshovian act on not single shots but three whole films: each film’s primary function is altered...A New Hope, a wacky adventure movie that is little more than a playground for technology, becomes a family soap opera in microcosm: Vader, Luke and Leia all cross paths and enter conflict all unaware that they are of the same family. The Empire Strikes Back...takes on an immense pathos within Vader’s character—previously an abstract cipher/image of evil, we now see only a sad and pathetic man who only wants to see his son. Return of the Jedi changes the least, but only because I presume Lucas had decided the series backstory by this point. Yet, it contains my favorite of all the changes: replacing the other actor in the final moments with Hayden Christensen. We can now recognize Anakin from Revenge of the Sith, we see that this is the same man, and, standing with Alec Guinness’s Obi-Wan, realize that it was their story all along, and sometimes such drama will only be resolved after death, and I find that intensely moving."
— Neil Bahadur, "Star Wars Dialogue: Part 5 Revision", MUBI Notebook, January 19, 2018.
", MUBI Notebook, January 19, 2018.